Sand Mountain Nevada - Labor Day 2003
By: Jim Suty

Friends of Sand Mountain (FoSM) were having their annual Clean-Up and they were also facing some serious closures and I wanted to lend a helping hand.

The BLM is looking to close a HUGE portion of the Sand Mountain Recreation Area. CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST INFORMATION, MAPS AND INFO ON HOW YOU CAN HELP!

Jon Crowley, President of FoSM, was kind enough to let myself and many others camp with him and his family and friends.

I could not find anyone free to go with me, so I loaded up my dog (Sandy) in the truck and drove straight through on Friday night arriving their around 11:00pm (roughly 8 hours from San Jose).

I found camp, and saw some friendly faces, Don Preble and family, Thomas from V8rail.com, Jon Crowley and others.

Thomas and I were enjoying a cold beer around the fire when unfortunately his dog became very ill and he had to leave Dumont in search of a veterinarian…luckily he found one and the dog is now fine.

Saturday morning was Clean-Up time. Flyinbowtie showed up with some great raffle prizes and I told him to bunk with me. Poor guy, he had no buggy…but it was okay we tried to break mine instead. :-)

It was nice to see representatives from Friends of Dumont Dunes, Friends of Oceano Dunes, Friends of Sand Mountain, CORVA, DUNERs and Blue Ribbon Coalition working together. Sand Addiction magazine was there taking pictures, thanks Nick.

I was VERY impressed with the FoSM clean up and silent auction. What a great way to educate the people, clean the dunes and raise money to support the fight. GREAT JOB FoSM!!!!

After the clean up we had time to play. We took several runs and had a blast. It was almost 100 degrees out during the day, so my motor was running very hot…sure did miss my ocean breeze! The night run was the best. Duning in shorts and seeing some spectacular stars…breath taking!

Sunday gave us some time to explore the dunes.

There is a hill out back that goes by several different names but provides a great over look of the dunes. It is also used to mark the passing of some fellow duners..RIP!

All and all, another fantastic trip!

If you want to enjoy Sand Mountain…join Friends of Sand Mountain in their fight to keep it open!!!

Click here for all the pictures.

Visit the ONLOCATION section for other trip reports.